The crowd surged forward. A beautiful young girl of twenty-nine was first to speak as children are wont to do. "Rockets away! Seeing two of you is pure lox. May I have dual autographs?"
"Only I am the true ambassador," said Konski.
"But my autograph is more valuable," said Part Two. "It doesn't come free, by the way."
"Mine costs the same!" piped in Konski.
The autographs kept the two of them out of trouble for a while while Palmer, Bretygne and Astaroth discovered a heretofore-unrealized capacity for cocktails. Finally a servo-mech floated above the multitude and announced that dinner was about to be served.
Alas, Part Two heard the announcement. "Will we be violating animal rights tonight?" he wanted to know. "Or perhaps vegetable rights?"
Palmer was starting to feel his fifth drink of the evening. That played no small role in his responding to the terrible twin. "I know for a fact, Mister Brother of the Anarchist Ambassador, that all our food tonight is completely synthetic. The only violation of rights has been on the molecular level."
"Don't ask this one what he thought of the Nano War," pleaded Bretygne in his ear.
"You used the 'n' word," he chided.
Somehow the unwieldy mass of well-dressed and undressed humanity wandered over to the dining area. Part Two went with them. As for Ambassador Konski, he grabbed Lady Lamarr by the arm and announced, "This is our chance. Follow me!"
"Why are you grabbing me by the arm?" asked Bretygne, but not really resisting. "Isn't that a violation of my elbow rights or something?"
"I'll make restitution," he grinned. "Besides, this way I know your boyfriends will follow."
They all went through a service entrance where a space cadet limo was waiting. They piled in and Konski ordered the robot driver to take them out into the lunar night.
Konski's tone of voice lost its strident quality. He sounded like a different person when he said, "Tonight reminded me of an observation by the twenty-first century philosopher Garmon. He said that the truth of all technological societies lies in the manner by which we come to resemble our tools. But I don't want to look like a silver egg with tentacles! I don't want to belong to any labor force that would have me as a member."
Bretygne suddenly felt relaxed for the first time that evening. "You know, Palmer thinks I'm a spoiled brat."
"I've never said that!" he protested.
"But it's true," she said, and not a single man in the limo asked her if she meant it was true that she was spoiled or that it was true that Palmer thought so.
The professor sounded happy, too. "Freedom is learning to balance responsibility along with being spoiled. Both are essential."
Konski nodded. "The human race seems to be on a bell curve. Those who can handle freedom and responsibly are at one end. Those who would be the masters and dictators are on the other end. The vast mass is the bell of the bell curve. They want a little freedom and a little slavery. They play the role of master and slave interchangeably even though they don't want either condition to be permanent."
Palmer couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "That's a surprisingly mature remark to come from a man who just turned in that performance back at the dome."
Konski laughed and started rubbing off his mustache with a bright red handkerchief. "They wanted to see anarchists tonight, didn't they? My brother and I worship a handful of twentieth century movie stars, the ones who had talent. The early, funny ones."
They were sitting in a comfortable semicircle in the back. The guest of honor started acting as if he deserved the title. He patted Palmer on the shoulder. "Enough of the show. Let's get down to brass tacks. Lysander has precious raw materials that are needed to power starships. It would be cheaper to mine them than to produce them artificially. That's also considering the distances involved and the time factors. But we need the United States of Earth to believe that we have a military capacity to defend ourselves."
"You don't!" all three of his critics spoke at once.
"Exactly. But we learned from the loss of a continent that our defense agencies have certain limitations. We know how to live together now, but that doesn't mean we have the organization to withstand an invasion by Earth forces! The bastards on the home world are capable of anything. They think we're all children on Lysander so none of us have rights. We must convince them we are children who can bite!"
The Earth hung above their conversation like a blue and green goblin, threatening the gray expanse of a free Luna. Palmer leaned back in his seat and exhaled slowly. He'd been expecting the moment of decision for some time. Now that it had arrived it was as if a shadow moved across his vision, taking with it all of his worries.
In his whole life, he'd never heard the word freedom used as often as he'd heard it today. The word wouldn't leave him alone. It had gotten inside him. Freedom. Liberty. A light to penetrate his personal darkness.
Looking at Bretygne, he seemed to see her for the first time. He felt something new. He didn't want to have sex with her or to compete with her or to prove anything. He simply felt affection.
Taking her by the hand he smiled. She smiled back. For a brief wonderful moment they were alone in the universe and not even gigantic egos like Konski and Astaroth could intrude.
"I can fix it," said Palmer. "Actually, the three of us can definitely arrange things for you, Mr. Ambassador. But you already know that. We can fool the United States of Earth into believing you have a significant military force. The destruction of the continent on Lysander is proof of your capacity, after all. No one in Berlin would ever believe the real reasons for that disaster."
Konski reached into a compartment and pulled out a small statuette. "This is a replica of the Statue of Liberty."
"Oh, my," said Bretygne. "The one that was destroyed."
"In the Welfare War," Astaroth finished for her.
Konski cradled his trophy. "This is a perfect copy except the inscription on the bottom has been changed. It speaks to what we need now on Lysander. And what we will require as we open new worlds. You three have spent enough time on Earth, don't you think?"
Palmer took the small statue and held it close. He read the inscription out loud:
This time, just send us your children!
According to Their Need
by Michael A. Stackpole
Father Flynn closed his eyes for a moment and luxuriated in the heat from the reflected sunlight coming up off the lake's silver surface. A gentle breeze provided a hint of a swell to rock the boat, but better was the insistent slap of wavelets against the aluminum hull. While Apogea's orbit around its single sun was a bit too distant to make the world quite warm enough, its largely unspoiled beauty more than compensated for the slight chill.
He opened his blue eyes again and smiled at the woman in the other end of the boat. "I'm thinking, Rina, this is about the closest to Paradise I'll be getting before a discussion with Saint Peter."
The woman laughed lightly and easily, and the youthful tone of her laughter further concealed her age. Flynn knew they were both in their fifties—him solidly, and she just starting—but she hid it well. Still lean, with bright hazel eyes and black hair without a hint of white, she seemed yet as youthful as she had when he first met her on the station. The years had used him a bit harder than they had her, and the resilience that had let her recover from tragedy had been long in evidence throughout his visit.
"Well, Dennis, I hope for your sake that you are incorrect. Apogea is very beautiful however." She gave him a very warm smile. "And, despite our lack of luck so far today, it does have the fattest troutganisms I've seen this side of Earth."
"Oh, I believe you, and I'm not in the least disappointed." He winked at her. "After all, it's called fishing, not catching, for a reason."
The small lake on which they were drifting lay in a forested hilly basin. The crystal waters were so pure that they just dipped a cup if they were thirsty. Trees resembling pines and maples dotted the hillsides, with Apogea
's evolutionary equivalent of cattails lining the shores. Off to the northeast he could see the white crescent of beach they'd set out from, and the cabin hidden a bit farther on, just the edge of the woods.
"It feels as if we're all alone here."
Arina Gadja nodded. "We are. Barring an emergency, accident, seriously poor navigating or someone incredibly rude, we won't see anyone else unless we chose to invite them or accept an invite."
Flynn tapped the chronometer on his left wrist. "But we're not really alone, are we, since we're being monitored all the time."
"Just for safety's sake. If your heart were to seize up, someone would be along to get you to sick bay."
Flynn shook his head. "You know, I'm still surprised you agreed to come here and live on Apogea. You spent your adult life working security on Qian space stations, enforcing one law over countless individuals who came from a legion of legal traditions. Law and order were so much the fabric of your life, and yet you retire to a world with no government."
Arina started to slowly reel her line in. "Surprised me, too. Given that all that had happened, it seemed like a good choice. Grants to live here are rare, so I could not pass up the chance."
"I know. It's an honor to be given one and I'm thinking I'm grateful you invited me to visit."
"And I'm grateful you came. The only thing Apogea doesn't provide is old friends. Everything else is taken care of, however, and that's how it works. If you think about it, Dennis, governments serve to guarantee security, both in terms of protecting the material we possess, and to see to it that our needs are met."
"Needs save those in the spiritual realm."
She smiled. "True enough, and I know the lack of churches here would be troubling to you, but churches also become a place where power can be concentrated and wielded in favor of one person over another. Here we operate by the golden rule, as overseen by Covenant."
Flynn knew she wasn't using the word Covenant in any religious or legal sense. Covenant was the name given to the vast computer network that administered the world of Apogea. When the creation of the exclusive colony was first proposed, it was agreed that those who wished to live there would put their assets into blind trusts and would come to live on the world forever—barring trips off world necessitated by family emergencies. Their assets and their needs would be taken care of through Covenant, which would monitor wants, whims, and necessitudes, blending desires and providing what people wanted primarily by knowing them as well or better than they knew themselves.
Creating a monastery world with resort trappings for the rich would have been simple, save that hedonistic pursuits precluded complete isolation. Some people bought their way into Apogea. Others, like Arina, earned a grant for service to society—and her grant had been paid for with heroism and blood. Yet others were contract residents. They were heavily screened and brought to Apogea to perform specific services for a year, with contracts renewed if desired. Because needs were met on the world, the generous salaries these people were paid were saved, with hefty performance bonuses being racked up along the way to guarantee good behavior.
On top of that, Covenant practiced random interval reinforcement. The Qian programmers had managed to look at desires and project, into the future, intersection points with external trends. Items and information related to these interests would arrive for the residents at various and unpredictable intervals. It was as if everyone was entered into a lottery on an hourly basis where they might win something they didn't know they wanted, but would please them the moment they got it. These gifts, many quite banal and innocuous, provided excitement and promoted good behavior.
"Oh, Arina, I'm thinking Apogea is quite clever, no doubt about it. When I told Father Ruxton I would be coming to visit, she was rather adamant in warning me about the seductive evil of this place. She said it had been modeled on the trick the Assassins used to play on recruits during the Crusades. They'd drug them and bring them to a magnificent palace where their every need was met. They'd be told they were in Heaven, then after three days, they'd be drugged again and returned to the real world. They'd had their taste of Heaven, so they'd go out and fight against Christendom, knowing the reward they'd have when they were killed."
She nodded and pulled her lure from the water, then set about changing it. "That is the beauty of Apogea, you see. We can exile disruptive influences. For guests and workers, unacceptable behavior is cause for immediate expulsion and forfeiture of bonds and bonuses. For me, being a grant, I'd get pensioned off to some nice resort world. Those who have bought their way in will be returned to the world they once knew, and barred from coming back here ever."
"Oh, the inducements to good behavior are certainly there, but that doesn't guarantee morality, and it doesn't do much for the immortal souls of those living here." Flynn paused as something tugged at the lure unseen in the depths. It wasn't a solid hit, so he continued. "We know, for example, that someone here has the idea that having a harem of sexual partners at his beck and call is a pleasure he wants to enjoy—and we know there are plenty of folks who would see nothing wrong with hiring on for a year here in paradise to deal with that need. And one could even argue that what goes on between consenting adults is fine, barring anyone being injured, but that only refers to physical injuries. The mental and emotional hurts can be considerable. Moreover, the removal from a state of grace is grave, and some might mistake this temporal Heaven for the real thing, playing now and burning later."
"You know I don't disagree with your view concerning morality, and I know you well enough to know that you don't mistake the Church's hierarchy with its spirituality." She tied off a knot, then spread her hands. "I find I can commune with God in this creation as easily as I can in any church."
"And yet," Flynn smiled, "you did have me say Mass and give you the Eucharist when I arrived."
"Religion and spirituality are not forbidden here—nothing is, if it does no harm—just the trappings that would allow it to become harmful."
"If I accept that you are correct, that governments are vital to preserving society through the distribution of wealth, and that meeting all needs obviates the necessity of government, would you concede that Apogea would collapse into anarchy if insecurity or vital shortages were introduced here?"
"At its worst, perhaps, but we also have the advantage of being highly self-sufficient, and a very sparsely populated world. Basic needs could be met easily and while the artificially high standard of living would suffer, the people here would suffer far less than any colony-world population." Arina shrugged. "On a world where, right now, temptation and desire are fulfilled, the necessity to commit crime does not exist."
Flynn nodded. The screening process to come to Apogea, even as a guest, included an examination of records as well as the filling out of numerous forms and polls about tastes and desires. He assumed that for residents of any stripe, the selection process was far more rigorous, and included batteries of psychological screening tests. Residents also had chips implanted in them that served the function of the monitoring device on his wrist. They also recorded physical reactions to stimuli, registering unconscious attractions to asocial behavior, and steps could be taken to curb it or eliminate the person.
Something appeared as a black speck far to the northeast and grew quickly enough. Flynn recognized it as a light Zsytzii transport. It hovered over the cabin for a moment, then came out toward them on the lake. It swooped low, rippling waves in its wake, and hung there, barely a meter off the surface as a side hatch opened. Through the forward windscreens Flynn had already seen one of the long, lean, black-furred Zsytzii Primaries piloting the ship. Another stood at the hatch, and a number of the junior males waited behind him, peering past waist and knees at the two anglers. The Primary wore a minimum of clothing, though the equipment harness did bear rank insignia in the Covenant Safety Service.
Arina gave the Zsytzii a polite nod. "Covenant's peace to you, Captain."
"And to you, Citizen Gadj
a. It is with regret that Covenant intrudes. We are Captain Lavaryn, and we regret spoiling your time with your friend. Your opinion is sought in a serious matter. Probabilities indicate your guest might be of aid as well."
"What's the problem?"
The Zsytzii smiled quickly, revealing a serrated ribbon of teeth. His juniors followed a second later, dispelling forever their benign appearance. "In the City, someone has died. Natural causes and accident have been statistically excluded, leaving only one alternative."
"Murder?"
The Zsytzii nodded solemnly. "So it is feared. Will you help?"
"I'm not sure what help I could be."
Captain Lavaryn sighed, and his juniors moaned. "Please, citizen, we have no experience in dealing with murder."
Arina glanced at Flynn, and the priest nodded encouragingly at her. The woman smiled slightly, golden sparks flashing from within her hazel eyes. "As you wish, Captain. Let us go."
* * *
The City, as it was known, was a fully functioning metropolis. It had been designed down to the square centimeter, for none of it existed fifty years previously when the Apogea project started. The City's development had taken place to reflect the desires, sensibilities, and tastes of the original residents, hence part of it was a disorganized artist section that Flynn had heard described as being "delightfully Bohemian." As nearly as he could tell that indicated that the streets were meant to run haphazardly, and that past every curve was a hidden gallery or cafe or some other little jewel of an establishment containing undiscovered treasures. Other parts of the City had the straight lines of the finest modern developments, and still other suburban communities surrounded the urban center.
The Zsytzii took them directly into the Arts district and set down in a park. The trip from Arina's cabin had taken little more than an hour, as the building had not been located far from the City. She actually had an apartment in one of the modern towers, but spent most of her time out at the lake.
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